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I’m not quite back in black but I’m damn near close to it.
Looking back at the spoils I managed to squirrel away from Comic-Con and what I managed to do with my time just reinforced something I’ve been suspecting for quite a while. It’s not that Hollywood has done something untoward this comic book convention or that it has somehow been responsible for the decline of western of civilization in the eyes of nerds who have been attending this thing for longer, let’s say, a decade but every person who decries this event as skip worthy needs to understand that it is *because* of the interest marketing departments all across California’s finest, and not so finest, studios have brought their goods is because they know this is one of the only times of the year when there’s the highest concentration of dweebs and nerds in one square mile.
That said, I love it. I love being pitched by those who think they’ve got exactly what I want, I love eschewing those who fail miserably at missing the mark completely, but I love being in the center of a maelstrom that I can only experience once a year. You may have other Cons that you can attend across the span of 12 months but I get just one chance to indulge my inner Asperger as a working stiff and there’s nowhere else I would rather do it in San Diego. I dig collecting t-shirts that I will probably never ever wear (although, I will probably turn my Watchmen movie shirt into a work out tank top), grabbing posters that will I will plaster in my cube in an effort to divert the reality that I’m a cube-r, bitching and moaning about the fucking retards who think they can simply stop in the middle of aisle as thousands wonder why you would bring a stroller into an environment like this but I really do appreciate the programming.
It used to be that these things were actually about comics but, hand to God, I’ve never been in a panel that talked about comics. I’ve been a collector nearly all my life, I love my comic books, but every best intention I’ve had to hear about what to expect from those properties I’ve spent my money on year after year is foiled by something else. I’m sure if I didn’t do so many interviews it would be a different story but I did have down time and I’ve spent that time in halls and panels that have spoken to my love of movies and television.
Would I have liked to have learned a little more about what’s in store this year for DMZ? Sure, but, dammit, Zack Snyder was showing off some footage that I wouldn’t be able to see anywhere on YouTube. I got a pretty pimp shirt out of the deal, too. So, while this is but one example I have to express my unyielding admiration for a convention that hasn’t changed as it has evolved. Here are then best reasons, then, why you should book early next year:
5. Meeting your artistry heroes. I was able to speak briefly with one of the best working artists today that you won’t ever see in your precious Wizard Top 10: Jim Mahfood. The man is on an eternal quest to keep his work fresh and relevant; he is definitely on the right path.
4. Feel sorry for those who are slummin’ it in the Autograph Pavilion. Jane Wiedlin is perhaps best known for her work with the seminal punk/pop crossover act, The Go-Go’s yet she was there, at the Comic-Con, signing autographs, for those who weren’t even born when the band was at their zenith. Peter Mayhew? I get that. We all get that. But Jane Wiedlin? Nope, don’t have a clue.
3. Movie panels. Yes, I want to know about the new FRIDAY THE 13th movie, I want to hear Zack Snyder talk about getting WATCHMEN to the screen and I really enjoyed hearing McG’s rambling about TERMINATOR 4. This is where hype has its epicenter and it’s because of these panels where a lot of us went gooey for 300 and now you never know what might be the greatest thing to come out of these things.
2. The films. If you’re really hard up to see something you could do a lot worse than to be able and see BORAT months before anyone else, SUPERBAD weeks before your dumb buddies start cribbing their favorite lines from McLovin’s repertoire and catch a glimpse of Tom Cruise swearing up a blue streak that no one has the first clue is going to be quite the thing on everyone’s lips come August 14th. This has been a added bonus for me.
1. The books. I don’t mean comics in quite the traditional sense. Marvel, DC and others don’t carry any back stock of their titles but who cares, fuck ’em. Go exploring the tables of Top Shelf, Drawn and Quarterly or Fantagraphics. I believe I came home with a carry-on with, no joke, 15-20 pounds of fresh reading material and none of it included with dudes with superpowers or ladies with unnaturally large breasteses. This could be the best reason to attend: laugh at the mopes standing around the carpeted Big Three areas while you find the best best thing somewhere else.
Director: Scott Prendergast
Cast: Lisa Kudrow, Scott Prendergast, Christine Taylor, Conchata Ferrell, Jeffrey Dean Morgan
Release: Now Playing (Limited)
Synopsis: Inept Salman (Scott Prendergast) comes to help his sister-in-law (Lisa Kudrow) tend to her homicidal toddlers while Salman’s brother is off fighting in Iraq. Salman must take a humiliating job as a giant blue corporate mascot to help make ends meet and hold the family together. Packed with a parade of delightful comedy character actors, KABLUEY is a hilarious, unique and heartfelt comedy.
View Trailer:
* Large (QuickTime)
Prognosis: Positive. I would like to be in possession of my faculties enough to tell you why I like this trailer but the honest truth is that I have no clue why I do.
It might have something to do, though, with this trailer’s insistence that it not give you one clue or obnoxious set up. I like having to push myself a little bit to get what’s going on and don’t think that Lisa Kudrow being in this was going to make it any easier; I don’t think I would be out of line to say that her name on the marquee has, in the past, been a sure sign of quality. I’m glad I took the chance to see what was underneath this hood because the trailer rewards you with something that is a fresh departure from the same old, same old.
One of the first things that you come to understand is that this is yet another movie that uses the Iraq war as a starting point. Again, another red flag that could have meant disaster, a Lisa Kudrow movie AND an Iraq war movie (probably could have meant another Bermuda Triangle of sorts), but it seems like it is only employed here superficially to introduce Lisa’s kids to their uncle. The dad is away defending the country and we’ve got this dweeby looking dude who is going to help out with a couple of hellions.
Yes, these kids look like they deserve a punch in the cock but our uncle isn’t deterred from trying to make life easier for his sister-in-law. Yes, it is a bit slapstick-y when one of these brutes pushes Chris Parnell into a strategically placed display of water that crumbles as he backs up into it after being pushed into it by one of these children but, again, it’s the uncle who deserves the credit. He’s an interesting choice as someone who doesn’t have a lot of baggage and simply comes out of nowhere.
He seems to be extending himself to help someone else but he doesn’t seem to be able to help himself. Further, he gets a job as this big blue blob of a man who hands out flyers but what’s interesting here is that the blob has no features, no recognizable shape, almost an un-man.
A juxtaposition happens here, as well, that helps elevate this trailer even further in my eyes. As this guy stands at the side of the road, why he’s standing out in the middle of literally nowhere seems awfully WAITING FOR GODOT-ish, he’s approached by Christine Taylor and a pack of other curious onlookers.
A nice pull quote from the Hollywood Reporter is welcomed exactly at this moment because, to the rest of middle America, this movie seems like it would be a hard sell. There’s no real semblance of where things are going and it’s certainly not following any kind of discernable road map that we’re used to.
People of all kinds react to him in very different ways and I am aching with curiosity of what in the hell is going on. You’ve got Jeffrery Dean Morgan (AKA The Comedian, AKA Javier Bardem’s stunt double) lashing out at this tall dweeb, you’ve got Kudrow’s kids finally calming the fuck down long enough to have a sensitive moment with their uncle plus you’ve got kids going batshit crazy for this thing at a birthday party of some kind.
Now, I will say that the soundtrack that leads us out of this thing is a bit weird. It’s not quite Dead Milkmen but it’s awfully close to a bizarre placement of a song like this; I don’t think it really harnesses the kind of estrangement that this movie seems to be about.
The trailer, though, seems like a poetic treatise on something and it absolutely does an excellent job in making me want to find out exactly what’s afoot here.
Director: Jonathan Levine
Cast: Ben Kingsley, Josh Peck, Olivia Thirlby, Famke Janssen, Mary-Kate Olsen
Release: Catch it at the $1 theater
Synopsis: It’s the summer of 1994, and the streets of New York are pulsing with hip-hop and wafting with the sweet aroma of marijuana—but change is in the air. The newly-inaugurated mayor, Rudy Giuliani, is beginning to implement his anti-fun initiatives against “crimes†like noisy portable radios, graffiti and public drunkenness. Set against this backdrop, Luke Shapiro (Josh Peck) spends his last summer before college selling dope throughout New York City, trading it with his shrink (Ben Kingsley) for therapy, while crushing on his step daughter (Olivia Thirlby). Famke Janssen, Mary Kate Olsen,and Method Man round out the cast in this edgy, bittersweet, and funny coming of age story.
View Trailer:
* Large (QuickTime)
Prognosis: Negative. It seems you can’t turn around in certain hipster film circles without tripping over the bent knees and legs that are fellating the WACKNESS. I’m glad I finally had a chance to see for myself whether this was a movie that deserved its oral gratification from many writers around the Interwebs.
It doesn’t.
I’m not sure what’s really to blame for the disconnect between what people are saying is a really good movie and the shit stain that this trailer left on my screen after it was done.
For starters, I was enamored with the opening. It’s unique to take the film studio’s logo and get things started with the spray painting of it and I really liked the opening shot of the cassette being dropped in the stereo; that genuinely defines the time and space in which we’re being dropped.
The card that explains that it won an Audience Award at Sundance is a huge feather that further gives the movie some implied goodwill.
I just think that what comes after, being introduced to Shapiro, a stoner looking douche if there ever was one, and his fantasy ladies, some hoochie mammas skipping and twirling on a subway car as if it was Showtime at the Apollo, doesn’t do the narrative any favors.
Asking some girlie in a bathroom to go steady? His look says it all and, worse yet, it does nothing to move the narrative forward. We’re further pushed along into this miserable man’s life as we get tossed a pack of disjointed clips with Ben Kingsley and others that don’t serve this movie in any positive fashion. I dare anyone to get through the first 25 seconds of this trailer and, without knowing what it is, tell me what’s happening.
It doesn’t help things when I have to, as a viewer, postulate for myself about what a movie is about. The trailer, teaser or otherwise, should establish certain elements and if I’m scratching my head by the end, which I certainly was, that doesn’t bode especially well for me as a potential paying customer.
I could make assumptions about what is going on with this kid but, from what I see, it’s an amalgam of a serious DAZED AND CONFUSED, mixed in with some KIDS and then someone wrapped it in a desirable 18-35 demographic. If it’s trying to be credible in any kind of way it simply isn’t.
To wit, when our blazed up hero is asked whether he’s a virgin he simply retorts that he just hasn’t officially had sex.
Would this trailer make you want to spend your money on it? It certainly isn’t getting any of mine.
And, as a reflective post-script, it seems like I wasn’t the only one to share this view. Many critics were at an impasse at what seems like a movie that wants to desperately be a clever indie but ends up dividing those who think otherwise.
Still, I’m not convinced that this flick is anything more than what I see in the trailer but when I’m able to queue it up in my Netflix line-up I’ll give it a whirl.
###
MAN ON WIRE
Directed by James Marsh
The real star of this film is Philippe Petit.
Not only because this man was able to rig a tightrope across the twin towers of the World Trade Center and defied all sorts of warning bells you or I would have ringing in our ears for self-preservation but this is a man who has the quintessential joie de vivre and it is all you can do to not want to sit down with this man and find out why he seems to have no fear.
It is that lack of fear that keeps this seemingly innocuous documentary, something I know people would just as soon skip on their way to see something with a more thrilling title, but this film will absolutely cause many a viewer to wonder why on earth Philippe Petit can do absolutely anything without that sense of panic you or I possess if we were even to suppose ourselves greater than a piece of solid grey wire.
The documentary, told through interviews with close associates, old file footage and brilliantly constructed reenactments that have the sheen and pallor of honest to goodness 1st person depictions of what happened as this little Frenchman planned and schemed to get his people, himself and, more importantly, his equipment to the very top of the World Trade Center to pull off one of the greatest death-defying stunts this country has ever seen. And that’s what makes this documentary so special and deserves every cent of your money at the box office. Petit is animated, delighted, passionate, energized and is so obviously on a different wavelength than anyone else you will probably ever meet that it’s hard to know if he’s like this every moment of the day. I have no reason to doubt a man, though, who is able to wax philosophical as he reflects on his own mortality while walking on a wire cable and is the only thing separating him from a free fall to his death. The man is truly honest when he talks about what it meant to him as a young man to see these twin towers go up and how it seemed to be a beacon, or a challenge of sorts, for him to take these monuments of man made steel and glass and internalize his entire self in challenge of them. Philippe could talk all day and you would love every moment of it. His animations are subtly captured and those involved in making this moment happen are all fascinating to listen to.
Like I mentioned, it doesn’t seem like a film that screams to be seen but, I would assert, and rightly so, this is a documentary that is able to take a moment in time that could have been over and done with on the evening news the day it happened and slows it down just enough so you can appreciate what one man had in his head as a dream and made it happen. It is at once inspirational and thrilling. To say that it happened and it’s a true story just makes it an even better escape for anyone willing to risk their very life in support of what the love. It doesn’t make Philippe any less crazy but he’s simply enthralling to listen to and appreciate.
Comments: 1 Comment
One Response to “Trailer Park: Top 5 Reasons To Love Comic-Con”Leave a Reply |
August 8th, 2008 at 10:12 am
And you show yet again sir why I love reading your article! I haven’t seen anyone use the word breasteses in a long time and it made me start my Friday with a laugh 🙂
I understand the cube dweller thing. I have my Fountain poster that I won up at my cube for when things are just bad and I feel like Tom Hanks having the life sucked out of his eyeballs through the flourescent lights in Joe Vs. The Volcano.